The Nostalgia Thread - Tales of Middleschool DIY & Soldering Iron Burns

[Vivekphadnis]

Talking of getting burnt with an iron. It was electronics practical class. The practice was that two will do an experiment together. There were these two guys and one was doing the soldering. He told the other to pass the iron and the first one grabbed the hot element while looking elsewhere and he had about three very distinct lines on his palm.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Eaargh,

It's the nostalgia thread!!! HELP!!!!! hahahahaha

LOL,

Didnt realise we had done 1.5pages of hi-jacking in the Barracuda ICE thread, so split the threads.

cya
R

[Vivekphadnis]

Great idea Rehaan. This thread was indeed way off topic. This thread should be fun.

[Sam Kapasi]

When i was learning how to fit car audio, about 10,12 years ago, i was connecting a Maruti 1000 (japanese)
Now this was one of the first cars to have an illumination wire. When the illumination was off, it would show ground 0V.

So like a fool, i used that for thr earthing wire and fit up the deck. It worked perfectly, all day. In the evening, the client put his lights on and there was smoke in the dashboard. The blooming wire melted, touched the body, fuses blew, the deck blew up, oh it was horrible.

The End.

[moralfibre]

When I was dismantling the audio setup from my Zen recently I disconnedted all the wires from the amp except the power cable and the ground wire. Now the battery side power cable for the amp was still connected and I disconnected the amp side cable and kept it aside. As soon as it touched the car body a welding like flame came out. Got brave and pulled the wire and managed to tape it up. Immediately disconnected the battery side of the power cable. The zen was sold with some welding spots in the boot LOL

Lesson learnt: Always disconnect power supply cable from the battery before playing with the equipment.

[2L8uLoose]

Ok here's mine.
I had a NIKKO buggy that I got from my first trip to Singapore, and that thing was FAST.. so after going over everything (including my dog's legs when they were asleep and really irritating the crap outa them) I got bored.
So, I put on the sprinkler's on the lawn.. and once it was pretty soaked, I let the buggy rip all over the lawn, much to the disgust of my parents.. but then what did I know back then.. not to say I know any better now!
Was having a BLAST with the buggy, until I went thru a slightly large puddle and water went into the chassis and SHORTED out the entire electronic controller.
So, opened up the puppy saw wires and stuff going all over the place, ( was about 11 at the time and didnt know my A from my E about circuits or electronics) poked and prodded around.. thought I solved the problem, connected the battery.. switched it on and POOF.. went up in smoke.LOL!
Miss that old buggy.. for the sole and simple reason that it used to drive my dogs NUTS!!

[low_bass_makker]

I changed the element of the solder iron as it was not working .So when I pluged it in and check it that it was getting how. aaaaaagghhhhhhaaaaa the element was short and I got a good electric shock. People I tell u that day and this day I never hold a iron without checking it with a tester

[Vivekphadnis]

I was very curious to know what would happen to an LED if I applied 230V mains to it. So I thought I would try it. I took a green LED and put it into the mains socket at home. Then I ducked and switched on. I found that most of the green part had flown off. The MCB installed ensured there were no electrical problems at home. he he he.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by 2L8uLoose

Miss that old buggy.. for the sole and simple reason that it used to drive my dogs NUTS!!

I think dogs are sensitive to the radio frequencies used in the remote controls as well....

cya
R

[navin]

...and i thought i was nuts!

[greatmana2000]

let me share my weirdness (according to my mom and friends) . I started diy when i was in the 10 th std . Before that i used to pull apart whatever i could lay my hands on . I would be pulling apart kitchen equipement like mixers ,motors ,radios ,etc .

When i was in the 10 i thought of making my own stereo and there was this book called EFY .I used to spend in the library copying the schematics from efy and elktor .

And after that i used to go to richie street and hunt for parts . most of the parts for elktor wouldnt be avaliable ,so i used to come back disappointed . but ,after that i made an amp with stk and that was my first real creation .

My dad used to own a bajaj scooter and the gears used to slip and lock up ,so each time they got locked up ,i used to remove the engine and reset the gears and thats when i started with mechanical stuff as well . There was this M80 which a freind of mine owned ,the engine used to crank up in the reverse ,and that was fun .


now ,I dont really solder or tinker much ,as I find it a waste of time . largely due to the fact that most of the parts are unavaliable immediately ,secondly concentrating on my career would really help me to buy a really good amplifier or a car which i can start using as soon as i buy . I just dont have to lock myslef in my room ,filler with the smoke of lead and flux and try figuring out whats causing the oscillations in my amp .

Ps. I for most of the times used to check the power line of my mains with a friend of mine ..hehe

[navin]

this is one advantage of being a spring chicken....i have no memory or any nostalgia.

[tsk1979]

My first experience with things electrical was in class 8th when I put in the cordless phone battery in the mains and switched it on.
The battery exploded, the generator(there was a power cut) got overloaded and I could hear the rpm dropping momentarily and then the fuse did its job.
I never told anybody it was me. They just thought it was the fuse acting up.

After that I started doing electro chemistry, trying electrolysis with every metal I could find, and also trying to burn hydrogen, followed by a short period exploring how inflammable spirit is(my parents are docs, so there was no shortage of spirit et al.)
Thankfully before I could blow up the house(I had by now graduated to investigating how cool it is when you spray butane based compressed rexona deodorant on a naked flame), my interest shifted to electronics, and repairing old transistor radio's and making antennas just to catch PTVs english shows which were aired in the evening.
That time cable TV had just come, and all parents thought of it as an evil device to wean kids away from studies.
People in Jalandhar could get PTV easily, but in Ludhiana, you have to play around with the Antenna on sunny days, and cloudy days always ensured good reception.

then our neighbors got cable, and I tried kundi, and the cable operator complained to my parents.
So as a workaround I did a small cut, attached a copper wire strand to a tree branch, and connected my antenna to the tree(indirect biological kundi) and used to watch cable at night when everyone was sleeping.

Finally at college my passtime(much to the annoyance of my lab partners whose aim was to score 85% in every exam and keep studying whole his life) was to see how much current a power transistor could endure before blowing up.
But soon interests in all this waned, and now I do occasional soldering(I am very bad at it), and disassemble and reassemble PCs
I have even killed a motherboard with a screwdriver, overheated and damaged a couple of CPUs, and destroyed a hard drive by magnetic accidents.

Do not bring you electronic troubles to me(PC assembly etc.,) unless you want an explosion.

[spadival]

I disassembled one of those so called Home computers when I was in 8th standard.. Never managed to put it back together though.

[greenhorn]

me started when i took apart dad's old panasonic Hi Fi. Some credit is deserved as i've managed to keep it in running condition ( tape transports/ dials /meters all working) Its still doing the honours as an amp with his htpc

Was damn scared to try out a soldering iron. heck, i joined Engineering to learn how to use a soldering iron

Did quite a few amp/speaker jobs for friends who wanted their sound cheap and loud, and it was a learning experience for both of us.

I'm usually sober with a soldering iron, except during our final year project, when we had to put in an entire week full of allnighters to get a one month project working in one week

Towards the end , there was stuff all over the floor, and my Soldering iron, translucent white handle , came with a green LED inside , which i modded to blue, was lying on the floor. Must have been quite sleepy when i sat on it. My *** got burnt , and the pressure must have shorted out the LED /wiring in the handle, which went out with a bang and took the house's fuse with it

Quite painful that was....